


Puppy Love

by earlgreytea68



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Inception Reverse Big Bang Challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-08
Updated: 2016-11-08
Packaged: 2018-08-29 20:10:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8503729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: Eames gets a puppy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Inception Reverse Bang, for this lovely piece of art by dreammaidenn: http://imgur.com/nmV5SjJ
> 
> Thank you so much to my incomparable beta arctacuda!!

“What are you doing with that?” Arthur asks. 

Eames thinks it’s pretty obvious what he’s doing with it. “I brought you coffee. I always bring you coffee. Because of my endless devotion to you. Even though you are cruel.”

“I am not talking about the coffee, Eames,” says Arthur. “I am talking about the _puppy_.”

“Oh.” Eames looks down at the puppy curled into his coat, head sticking happily out the top of it, tongue lolling. “This is Bourgeois.”

“ _Bourgeois_?” Arthur repeats, as Eames puts the coffee down on his desk. 

“I named him after you,” says Eames.

“What the fuck is that even supposed to mean?” says Arthur. 

Eames shrugs. “Interpret at will. Hello, fair fellow travelers.” 

He waves to the rest of the team, all of whom are happily enjoying The Arthur and Eames Show, as happens on a daily basis, at least. Eames strives to maintain their high standards. 

“The puppy is _so cute_ ,” says Chan, coming over to see him. 

Bourgeois wriggles happily, tail wagging, so Eames frees him from his coat, giving him free rein to tumble uncoordinatedly all over the warehouse. 

Patricia says, “Is he going to be distracting?” 

“Of course he’s going to be distracting,” says Arthur, exasperated. 

“He is going to be an _angel_ ,” says Eames. “He’s a very well-behaved little puppy.” 

Bourgeois chooses that moment to pee on one of the legs of Arthur’s desk. 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows at Eames. 

Eames says, “He’s not quite potty-trained yet.” 

“Eames,” says Arthur, very carefully, moving his shoes away from the puddle of urine. “Why. Do you have. A puppy.” 

“You told me I had to get close to the mark.”

“Not following.” 

“Well, everyone knows this is how you meet girls. With a puppy.”

“No, it’s not,” says Arthur. 

“Do you spend a lot of time meeting girls?” asks Eames knowingly. 

Arthur frowns. “Take your puppy, and clean up this mess.”

“Darling, I would love to,” says Eames, “but I’m running late for dog park time. Bye! Cheerio!” Eames tucks Bourgeois into his coat again and leaves Arthur and the rest of the team to their tasks. 

Arthur, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem thrilled. 

***

Bourgeois is, naturally, brilliant. The mark is a little stiffer than Eames had anticipated, but he feels sure his adorable puppy is going to do the trick and lure her in eventually. 

When he gets back to his hotel room, Arthur is sitting on the bed. 

“Look!” Eames tells Bourgeois, putting him down. “You have lured me an Arthur! Even better!”

Arthur scowls. “He hasn’t lured you anything.” Bourgeois jumps onto Arthur’s lap and commences to licking Arthur’s face. “What the fuck?” complains Arthur.

“Who can blame him?” asks Eames. “You have a lickable face, darling.”

“I don’t have a lickable face,” protests Arthur, with the lickable mouth he has within that irresistibly lickable face.

Eames corrects himself. “You have an _irresistibly_ lickable face.”

Arthur gives him a look, battling with Bourgeois. “Have you ever licked my face?” 

“No,” Eames says, resenting the question because, no, he has never licked Arthur’s face and he doesn’t exactly like to be _reminded_ of that, thank you very much. 

“Then licking my face _is_ resistible. You’ve resisted it all this time. You should keep resisting it,” Arthur adds, foreclosing Eames’s comment otherwise. Arthur deposits Bourgeois back on the ground. 

Bourgeois curls up directly on Arthur’s foot, looking up adoringly, tail thumping furiously against the floor. 

“He’s already in love with you,” remarks Eames. “I know the feeling.”

“Stop it,” says Arthur, long-suffering. “You’re not in love with me. Can we have a serious conversation?” 

“While you’re sitting on my bed, pet?” asks Eames, lifting his eyebrows. 

“There’s nowhere else in the room to sit,” Arthur defends himself primly. 

“No. There isn’t. Because someone was tight-fisted with the budget.”

“You don’t need a _suite_ , Eames.”

“It turns out that I do, if point men are going to be turning up here all the time sitting on my bed with my puppy on their laps.”

“Your puppy’s on the floor. How many point men do you expect to be visiting this room?”

“Don’t be jealous, darling,” says Eames, flopping down on the bed next to Arthur. Arthur is at the foot of the bed. Eames’s shoe could just brush Arthur’s thigh, if he let it. “You know I only work with you. You’ve spoiled me for all other points. Ruined me for everyone but you, you heartless sorcerer.”

“Sorcerer?” Arthur is turned half on the bed so he can see Eames. 

“Mmm,” says Eames. 

“I am here to talk about your puppy.”

“About how adorable he is?” 

“About how this hotel doesn’t allow pets.”

Eames frowns. “Arthur. Seriously. What kind of fucking cheap place—”

“You have money,” says Arthur, sounding exasperated. “You have lots and lots of money. Go and get your own fancy pet-allowing suite.” 

“I will have you know that I am _destitute_. I spend all of my money on loose living. You know that.”

“I do not know that. I know for a fact that’s a big act you put on to get people to underestimate you. You’ve got, actually, a very sound investment strategy.”

Eames is torn between being impressed and annoyed. He goes with scowling. “You know what I love the most about you? Your condescension.”

“No, you don’t,” says Arthur, and Eames knows he’s saying that because he doesn’t think Eames loves anything about him, not because Eames doesn’t love his condescension the most. 

“For a very clever bloke, you’re an idiot,” says Eames. 

“Right back at you,” says Arthur pleasantly. “Do not get us kicked out of this hotel.”

“What the hell?” says Eames indignantly. “I am an _internationally wanted criminal_. You think I’m going to get bloody tripped up over a _dog_?”

“I plan for every contingency,” says Arthur. “I admit I didn’t plan for the contingency of you getting a dog, but now I’m planning for the contingency that the dog fucks this whole job up.”

“He’s not going to fuck anything up. He’s going to get the mark to fall in love with me.”

“You or your dog?” 

“Doesn’t matter.”

Arthur looks down at his feet. “Hey, Bourgeois,” he says. “Is your owner an idiot?”

Bourgeois, whining happily, jumps up on Arthur’s lap and resumes licking his face. 

“Bourgeois is a traitor,” grumbles Eames. “Did you really break into my hotel room to tell me to be careful about the dog?”

“Yes. And to remind you that I can break into your hotel room.” Arthur stands with Bourgeois in his arms. 

“Well, next time I’m going to leave some gorgeous man in my bed just to irritate you.”

“Why would that irritate me?” asks Arthur, and dumps Bourgeois onto Eames’s chest. 

Eames looks up at him. “You know, I am very happy to play power dynamic games with you anytime you want, with less clothing on. Or even this amount of clothing on, if that’s how you like it. Just with a different objective.”

Arthur grins, that sharp-toothed shark’s grin he has. “How do you know my current power dynamic games don’t have the objective you wish? Don’t let the puppy chew up any of the furniture.” Arthur breezes out of Eames’s hotel room. 

Eames says to Bourgeois, “I fucking hate him, except for how I love him.” 

Bourgeois gives a little yelp, which clearly means, _Me, too_. 

***

Eames walks into the warehouse with Bourgeois under his arm and no cup of coffee for Arthur. Instead, he stalks up to Arthur’s desk and bites out, “You. Fucking. Prick.”

Arthur looks up with mild interest. “Good morning,” he says. 

“No. Seriously. You rendered us _homeless_?” Eames puts Bourgeois on Arthur’s desk.

Bourgeois bounds over to Arthur, tail wagging wildly, crumpling all of Arthur’s papers, so that he can attack Arthur’s face with his tongue. 

Arthur frowns and tries to rescue his papers while simultaneously dodging Bourgeois’s tongue. “Oh, dear,” he says. “Don’t tell me that the great internationally wanted criminal failed to keep his puppy dog a secret from the silly hotel owners?”

“No,” Eames retorts. “You sold me out.” 

Arthur lifts his eyebrows and scratches behind Bourgeois’s ears. “Did I? My, how dramatic. For what price could I ever be persuaded to sell you out? My loyalty, as you are always so quick to remind me, is _self-destructive_ in its steadfastness.” 

Eames scowls and leans over Arthur’s desk. “This is another power dynamic game,” he accuses. 

“I don’t know why you think I play games,” says Arthur. “Nobody else thinks I play games.”

“Nobody else knows you half as well as I know you, and you can’t deny that with a straight face, so you’re just going to fume at me now.” 

Arthur fumes at him. 

“C’mon, Bourgeois,” Eames says, scooping him back up. “We have a mark to flirt with.” 

“Where’s my coffee?” Arthur calls after him. 

“I let Bourgeois drink it,” Eames replies as he reaches the warehouse door. 

“Dogs can’t drink _coffee_!” is what Arthur shouts as Eames exits onto the street. 

***

Bourgeois is chewing on one of Arthur’s doubtless very expensive pair of shoes. 

Eames can’t really bring himself to care. 

Arthur says, “What is this?” when he walks into his room to find it occupied. 

Eames doesn’t look up from where he’s flipping through the terrible offerings on television. “Bourgeois and I were homeless.” 

“‘Were’?” echoes Arthur. 

“Then I remembered I’m an internationally wanted criminal who can get into a hotel room just as well as the next bloke,” says Eames. 

Arthur is silent for a moment. “You’re not happy with me.” 

“You know what I’ve always said about you?” says Eames. “That you’re really bloody clever.” 

Arthur sighs and looks at where Bourgeois, with a fierce little growl, is shaking the shoe in his mouth. “I suppose you think I deserve that?” asks Arthur, gesturing to the destroyed shoe. 

“I don’t think you deserve that,” replies Eames. “I _know_ you deserve it.”

“And I deserve you taking over my bed, too?”

“Darling, I’m not unreasonable,” says Eames. “We can share the bed.”

Instead of quarreling with him, Arthur, to Eames’s surprise, drops down onto the opposite side of the bed, sprawling on his back with his arm over his eyes.

Eames looks down at him, hesitates, then says, “Don’t worry. I’m not really angry. I know you were just playing with me.” 

“I’m not worried,” says Arthur. “And I don’t _play_.”

Eames shakes his head, although Arthur doesn’t have the benefit of seeing it. 

Bourgeois comes over to Arthur’s side of the bed and puts his paws up on the mattress, scrabbling for purchase, and whines to be helped up.

Arthur rolls over to help him up onto the bed, where he happily tumbles over Arthur’s body to attack Eames’s fingers. 

Arthur says, “So how’s it going with seducing the mark?”

“She seems immune to my charms.”

“What about Bourgeois’s charms?”

“Nobody is immune to Bourgeois’s charms.”

“Except for her?” guesses Arthur. 

“It’s possible she doesn’t like dogs.”

“Eames,” groans Arthur. 

“Also, she might think I’m stalking her.”

“ _Eames_ ,” groans Arthur more loudly. 

“Relax, would you? I’ve got it under control.”

“This is you with everything under control? Living in somebody else’s hotel room with a contraband puppy?”

“Have I ever failed you on a job, pet?” Eames asks patiently.

Instead of answering that question, Arthur says, “Why do you have a dog?”

“I told you—”

“Stop it. The dog is doing an appalling job of helping you seduce the mark. And, regardless of what you like to lead others to believe, you’re not an idiot and you don’t do stupid things. So tell me why you have the dog.” 

Eames is silent for a long moment, watching Bourgeois sprawl on his chest, growling contentedly as he chews on his fingers with his puppy teeth. 

“I found him in a rubbish bin,” he says finally. “Thrown in there like a piece of garbage. He was crying his heart out, poor thing. I couldn’t leave him in there.”

“I knew it,” says Arthur quietly, after a while, arm still flung over his eyes. 

He falls asleep, eventually, in that same position. 

***

Arthur, sleeping, is a marvelous work of art. Eames is lucky that sometimes it’s part of his job description to just watch Arthur sleep. 

He’s not being paid to do it at the moment, but he does it nonetheless, one arm underneath his head, the other arm keeping Bourgeois from launching himself at Arthur and waking him up. Clearly, Bourgeois’s love for Arthur cannot be contained from the other side of the bed. 

Eames gets it, though. Arthur, in sleep, is curled up, tipped toward Eames, and his nose twitches a little, and his mouth is lush and relaxed, and his eyelashes fan out over his cheekbones, and Eames is so in love it makes him feel slightly ill, and he doesn’t understand why Arthur is so stubborn about not believing him about that. 

He should wake Arthur up, he thinks. He should get Arthur to change out of the suit he’s worn all day. Clearly it can’t be comfortable to sleep in. 

But he doesn’t want to wake Arthur up and get in an argument about sleeping arrangements, not when Arthur has decided the sleeping arrangements so very nicely at the moment. 

“Arthur’s sleeping,” Eames tells Bourgeois. “We should go to sleep, too.”

Bourgeois licks Eames’s nose happily. 

***

In the morning Eames wakes to find Arthur already up and fully dressed, fastening his cuffs. 

“Damn it,” Eames mumbles. “I was at least hoping to catch a glimpse of you _sans_ tie.” 

“I am never _sans_ tie,” says Arthur. “I shower in my tie.”

“Do you? That’s…weirdly hot.” 

Arthur rolls his eyes. “You think everything I do is weirdly hot.”

“No, sometimes I think things that you do are just hot, period. Straight-up hot. Uncomplicatedly hot.”

“I walked your dog for you.” 

“See? That is just straight-up, uncomplicatedly hot, period.”

Arthur, shrugging into his suit coat, gives him a look. “It was a dog walk. There was nothing very hot about it. He’s not very good at not eating disgusting things, and he doesn’t understand how a leash works.”

“He’s a _puppy_ ,” Eames says. “And he’s only been loved for three days now. We’re still breaking him in.”

“Bourgeois,” says Arthur to an area near his feet, so that must be where Bourgeois is, “be very extra-cute and alluring today, as your incompetent owner needs to seduce our mark and is depending on you to do all of his work for him.”

“I object to everything about that characterization of what’s going on here,” says Eames. 

“I don’t accept objections,” says Arthur airily. “I’m going to work. And so are you. Shave. The mark might not like the scruffy type.” 

“She doesn’t like _rakishness_?” says Eames. “You think she doesn’t like _incredible attractiveness_?”

“Going now,” says Arthur, and leaves. 

***

Eames slides a cup of coffee onto Arthur’s desk. And a slip of paper with a number written on it. 

Arthur lifts an eyebrow at him. 

Bourgeois yelps and launches himself onto Arthur’s lap.

Arthur catches the bundle of him and says, “Whose number is that?”

“Whose do you think?”

“Knowing you, it could be absolutely anyone’s. It could be the Queen of England’s.”

“It’s not a British number,” says Eames. “It’s the mark’s. Everyone!” he proclaims to the warehouse at large. “I have procured the mark’s number!”

“Yay,” chorus Chan and Patricia, sounding not very enthused at all. They don’t even look up from what they’re doing.

Eames frowns. “This was important, you know. Vital to the entire job.” 

“Nobody doubted you’d get it done, Eames,” says Patricia, sounding bored.

“ _Arthur_ doubted it,” Eames points out, determined to have his triumph noticed.

“No, he didn’t,” says Chan, not looking up from her phone. “He said you’d for sure get it done. He said you’ve never let him down. He said we shouldn’t worry about you with the puppy, that you were totally focused and he’d absolutely vouch for you.”

Eames, amazed, looks at Arthur. “You said that?”

“No,” says Arthur, but his ears are pink. “I said you’re a loser who can’t be trusted. Obviously.” 

Eames narrows his eyes at Arthur.

Arthur says, “Oh, look, Bourgeois needs to be walked,” and leaves the warehouse with Eames’s dog. 

Patricia says, “You two are a fucking train wreck, you know it? I mean, entertaining as all hell. But a fucking train wreck.”

***

When Eames follows Arthur outside, Arthur hasn’t got far. Then again, Eames thinks, he’s no longer so sure Arthur was trying to get very far. Eames is very deep in thought. Arthur is standing on the corner with Bourgeois, who is happily sniffing at a bush, and Eames is thinking that Arthur is a horrible bastard almost all of the time, playing ridiculous games in which neither of them ever gets naked, and Eames loves him without qualification and has done since the first time Arthur, smug and icy and unattainable, turned his back on Eames. And presented him with a view of his arse, yes, but Eames doesn’t just love him because of his arse. 

His Arthur, standing on the corner with Bourgeois, ears pink. 

Eames draws to a stop next to him and studies him unabashedly. 

Arthur says, “Shut up.” 

“I haven’t said a single word.”

“You’re going to,” Arthur says, “and I don’t think we should—”

“Arthur, is it possible you told the hotel I had a dog in my room so they would throw me out so I would break into your hotel room and move in with you?” 

Arthur opens and shuts his mouth. 

Glee is working its way up Eames’s spine, a shivering tickle that makes him want to leap about. “ _Darling_. Did you contrive to make me _move in with you_?”

“No,” says Arthur unconvincingly. “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. No. Absolutely not.”

“Arthur,” says Eames. “Darling, darling Arthur.” 

“I know you think you’ve come to some great revelation, pieced some amazing puzzle together,” says Arthur desperately, “but you really haven’t—”

“We’ve been playing games,” says Eames slowly, “for so very long that it stopped occurring to me that maybe you were playing games because you _like_ me, and not just because you like provoking me. Why didn’t you ever say? You ridiculous creature, why didn’t you—”

“Stop it,” Arthur interrupts angrily, startling Eames. “You like to have your attention held. You like a challenge. You didn’t think anything of me until I insulted you and refused to fall for you.” 

Eames blinks. “Darling—”

“Don’t even try to pretend otherwise. What was I supposed to do? Be like every other person who slips you a phone number when you decide you want it? I couldn’t be that, Eames. I can’t be. You don’t care about the people who do that. And now you know and the fun will go out of it for you and I won’t matter anymore.” 

Arthur sounds miserable. 

Eames stares at him. “You think I’m going to…lose interest?” 

Arthur laughs harshly. “Yes. I know you are. That’s what you _do_.”

Eames’s eyes narrow. “When have I ever lost interest in you?” 

“Because I never _let_ you. Because I’ve been running flat-out to—”

“I’m in love with you,” Eames spits out. “You never let me be _in love with you_. You turn everything into a horrible fight, and half the time I hate you when I would prefer to just love you. You’ve been keeping us apart, not together.” 

Arthur shakes his head. “Stop it. Stop saying you’re in love with me. You’re just—”

Eames goes down on one knee. 

Arthur’s eyes widen and he chokes on his sentence. Then he manages, “What are you doing?” 

“Arthur…Last-Name-Redacted. Will you marry me?” 

“What?” whispers Arthur. 

“Say yes, darling, everybody’s looking at us.” 

“What are you doing?” Arthur hisses. 

“I mean it. I’m not going to lose interest. You’re the love of my life, and I’ve never wanted anyone else, and I highly doubt that you’re suddenly going to turn into the world’s most accommodating husband, so don’t be concerned that our life’s suddenly going to get dull, petal.” 

“I’m not going to marry you,” Arthur says. 

More loudly than he intended. The crowd around them grumbles disapproval. 

Arthur glances at them. 

“See?” Eames remarks, from his one-knee perch. “You’re already less than accommodating.” 

“I’m not going to marry him _yet_ ,” Arthur tells the crowd hastily, and turns back to Eames. “You idiot. We’ve never even _kissed_.”

“Oh,” says Eames. “Is that what’s worrying you?” Eames rises easily and catches Arthur’s face in his hands and kisses him. 

It’s the sweetest, gentlest, most tender first kiss Eames has ever had in his life. He feels suddenly like a schoolboy being granted an incredible gift. And wanting it every day for the rest of his life. 

There’s applause around them. 

Arthur says, looking a little dazed, “I didn’t think you’d kiss like that.”

“Don’t worry,” says Eames, wolfish smile in place, and kisses Arthur’s chin. “I don’t always. But I do sometimes. I guess, I do when it’s you.” 

Arthur doesn’t say anything, but his breath does this shuddering thing that makes Eames want to eat him alive just so he can keep him safe. Which might sound paradoxical but totally isn’t in Eames’s mind. 

Bourgeois yelps at them urgently. 

Eames looks down to notice that Bourgeois has been scrabbling at Arthur’s trouser leg, which is now covered in mud. 

“Oh,” says Eames. “Was that a very expensive suit?” 

“Fuck it,” says Arthur, and leans in and kisses Eames again, this time not sweet or gentle or tender at all. This time like an all-out war has been declared and Eames is really in favor of the chosen battlefield. 

“The sex,” he says to Arthur, panting, “is going to be spectacular.” 

“Stop talking,” Arthur says, recapturing his mouth. 

Eames decides not to argue. 

Bourgeois, resigned to not going anywhere for a while, curls up on Eames’s foot with a heavy sigh. 

Eames thinks what a wholesome, all-American couple they would look like if their tongues weren’t down each other’s throats. 

Eames thinks, tickled pink, it’s so very _them_.


End file.
